


Autodidacta machinalis

by heffalumps



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Post-Kaidan Alenko/Shepard, Pre-Kaidan Alenko/Shepard, break my heart why don't you, ffs Kaidan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 16:04:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14115927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heffalumps/pseuds/heffalumps
Summary: Autodidacta machinalis - machine learning: an application of artificial intelligence that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed.A short backstory fic for Morgan Shepard - spacer, war hero, renegade. The story of how someone born a paragon becomes a renegon, and then goes on to become a renegade.





	Autodidacta machinalis

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and kudos and all kinds of reactions from readers are more than appreciated. I am a starving writer dying of thirst in the midst of a desert, and you are my water. No pressure or anything. :D <3 Nah, in seriousness, it's my first Mass Effect fic ever, so I'd really love to know your thoughts even moreso than usual! This is your chance to inspire me to write more Mass Effect. Bwahaha.

**2154**. Morgan is brought into the world without much fanfare. There is no christening ceremony, no calls to relatives, no baby shower. Her parents are ensuring humanity becomes stronger. They are solidifying their match, one born of convenience more than love. It is a duty, not a privilege, to reproduce. And so, from the very moment Morgan first opens her eyes, she is fulfilling a purpose - but it is not _her_  purpose. It is _the_ purpose.  
  
**2157**. Morgan is three years old. She falls over and splits her lip. She tastes blood in her mouth. A sob catches in her throat, and she reaches toward her father. She’s scared, she’s in pain - but the reassurance she’s looking for doesn’t come. Instead, he looks down at her for the briefest moment. Then, he looks away, brushes her hand from his sleeve and utters the words, “Shepards don’t cry.” That cut becomes Morgan’s first scar; that moment, her first memory.  
  
**2160**. Morgan’s father takes her to the shooting range for the first time. He gives her a small pistol and takes her through its use. Morgan does her best - and it doesn’t take her long to hit the edge of the target. “This your kid?” one of her father’s colleagues asks. “She’s gonna be a great soldier someday.” Morgan’s father looks at her, his eyes shining with pride and a smile on his lips.  
  
**2161**. Morgan is seven years old and has lived on as many space stations. On this, the seventh, there is another girl her age. Years later, Morgan won’t even remember her name - but it is the first time anyone has ever looked at her as _Morgan_ , not as _the young Shepard_. It’s the first time she’s ever had a friend. When her parents once again tell her they have been stationed somewhere else, for the first time, she kicks up a fuss. She screams. She cries. She doesn’t want to be alone again. Her father looks at her, then at her mother, then back at her. “We can’t afford to get attached,” he says. “Shepards do what must be done. We do our duty.” Morgan swallows her sobs, wipes her eyes and nods. She is a Shepard, after all.  
  
**2165**. Morgan doesn’t know anyone in her class. She goes to her lessons and keeps to herself - but there is one boy who keeps looking at her. A boy who, one day, turns to her and asks her what her name is. A smile already springs to Morgan’s lips, and she’s about to reply and make a friend. But then she hears her father’s voice in her mind: _Shepards don’t get attached. Shepards do their duty. No distractions._ And so her smile turns into a glare, and she looks away. No one in her class tries speaking to her again.  
  
**2169**. The family is having dinner - quietly, as is their norm. This time, Morgan musters up the courage to break the silence. She hands her father an invitation to her graduation ceremony, starts to ask him if he’d like to attend… But then he looks sharply at her, and she falls silent mid-sentence. “Don’t be sentimental, Morgan. You’re better than that. When there’s something to actually be proud of, you know we’ll be there.” Morgan bites her lower lip and says nothing more about it.  
  
**2171**. Morgan is at the shooting range. It’s where she spends all her free time these days. It’s the only place to get away from the looks, to get away from the whispers. “There goes that Shepard kid again,” they say. “They think they’re so much better than the rest of us.” She doesn’t think like that - but when she’d asked her father what she should do about it, he’d merely shrugged and told her to get over it. It was _inconsequential_. And so, when all the others her age gather together in the mess hall after hours to laugh and joke, she comes here. She practices. What she doesn’t tell anyone is that she wishes more than anything that she could join them. That’s her secret, her _weakness_. She’s lonely. She takes aim again. She hits the target dead on.  
  
**2172**. Morgan enlists. She completes her basic training at the top of the class - there’s next to nothing there that she doesn’t already know. In less than a year, she’s being sworn into the Alliance military - and _that_ ceremony her father shows up to watch. He pats her on the back afterwards, seeming to struggle for words for a moment until he finally says: “someday, you’ll make me proud, Morgan.” He turns to leave, and she goes to join her new unit. From that moment onward, she is no longer Morgan. She is Shepard.  
  
**2176**. Shepard is on leave, and she’s once again ignoring her mother’s requests to come and visit them on some station or other. She hasn’t seen her family in years - but it doesn’t bother her too much. It’s just an emotional attachment. It’s inconsequential, and it gets in the way. It’s better to not feed it. She goes to Elysium instead.  
  
**2177**. They pin the Star of Terra onto Shepard's chest. After the ceremony, she hears her father talking to one of the officials. ”You must be so proud. She’s become a good soldier,” the official says. Her father corrects him: ”she’s become who we raised her to be.” He meets Shepard’s eye and gives her the slightest of nods, an acknowledgement that she did well. It’s what she’s always wanted - and yet, she’s left feeling hollow.  
  
**2182**. The Star of Terra has opened a lot of doors for Shepard, and she’s gone through all the right motions. Accepting posts, completing missions, serving the Alliance faithfully. She clutches the missive in her hand, the one telling her of her next assignment: executive officer aboard the SSV Normandy. It’s an excellent post. She is a credit to her name, to her lineage, to her family. Still, she feels no excitement. It’s just a job, a job like all the others.  
  
**2183**. Everything on the ship is going well until the day that Shepard walks in on two of her new subordinates discussing her. ”She terrifies me,” one of them says, and his confession is met with approving nods from the other. ”She’s… more a machine than human, don’t you think? Does she even _have_ emotions?” Shepard stops in her tracks. She had been about to interrupt them, to tell them to stop loitering and get back to their posts, but now… now, her throat tightens. She clenches her teeth and retreats to her quarters. Shepards aren’t emotional. Shepards _shouldn’t_ be emotional. So why does it bother her that that’s the way people see her?  
  
**2183**. The staff lieutenant looks at her sometimes. He seems to think she doesn’t notice, but she does. It’s not the first time someone has looked at her that way - though it hasn’t happened in a long time. Usually, everyone just looks away to avoid meeting her gaze head-on. Everyone except him. Shepard doesn’t know how she feels about that; all she knows is that it doesn’t matter.  
  
**2183**. One time, the lieutenant calls her Shepard. Not Commander, not ma’am, but _Shepard_  He immediately tenses; he knows he’s spoken out of turn. She can see the hesitation flash across his expression as she takes a small step back. Her rebuke is ready on the tip of her tongue - but something stops her from uttering it. On his lips, _Shepard_ almost sounds like a name. It doesn’t sound like a title. She smiles.  
  
**2183**. He calls her Shepard all the time now, casually and seemingly without thinking. He talks to her - her, _Shepard_ , not her, _Commander_. He tells her things, asks her about her thoughts, asks her about her _feelings_. The feelings nobody else thinks she has. But, around him, she smiles; around him, she even sometimes laughs. So, just once, she slips up. Before she even realizes what she’s doing, the name falls off her lips - she calls him _Kaidan_. The effect is immediate; his smile lights up the room. The next time she calls him by his given name, it’s not by accident.  
  
**2183**. They both know it’s wrong to feel this way. Kaidan is the first one to bring it up - how fraternizing within the Alliance is strictly against protocol. Shepard agrees with him, but, for the first time in a long time, she feels a little tug of rebellion. She doesn’t want to do things according to protocol. She wants something else - something _more_  Maybe, after this is all over, she can have that with him. The thought gives her something to fight for, gives the cause she serves meaning. She has _hope_ , and, when she looks at him, she can see the same hope reflected in his eyes.  
  
**2183**. Shepard made a decision, and a member of her crew died as a result. She looks at Kaidan, at the way his shoulders are hunched against the grief he feels, and her heart pounds faster in her chest. She let Williams die to save Kaidan. She did it without thinking, she did it without weighing the odds. Afterwards, she has been able to rationalize it: she needed to go back to Kaidan, because he was with the bomb. The bomb was the priority, the bomb _had_ to be the priority to successfully complete their mission. But, in the moment, all she had thought of was saving him. The realization terrifies her. She no longer knows just how far she would go to keep him safe - and that goes against everything she’s believed in her entire life. He has changed her. He looks up and meets her gaze, and her breath catches in her throat.  
  
**2183**. The Council still doesn’t believe her. Shepard leans against the wall, her eyes closed, taking deep breaths to quell the roiling anger in the pit of her stomach. She knows the Reapers are coming, she knows they have to stop them, but nobody believes her. She hears a sigh and feels a warm body sit down beside her. He says nothing, but even without opening her eyes she knows it’s Kaidan. In her moment of weakness, she leans against his shoulder. He stiffens in surprise - but doesn’t shake her off. They sit there quietly for a long while, alone, together. Little by little, Morgan’s anger fades. She opens her eyes to see him looking down at her, warmth unlike any she has ever seen in his gaze. Perhaps someone believes in her, after all.  
  
**2183**. They’re getting close to Saren, and, with every passing hour, Shepard becomes more and more anxious. It’s not an emotion she’s used to allowing herself to feel - let alone an emotion that she ever thought she would let affect her decisions. And yet here she is, trying desperately to find a way to keep Kaidan out of it, to keep Kaidan safe. She already knows it’s futile to even think about - he would never want her to go alone, and she would never go against his wishes like that. She knows by now that he will always be by her side - and, despite everything, the thought makes her feel better.  
  
**2183**. They know where Saren is. They’re on their way to get him. All around Shepard, her crew is preparing to face whatever may come. Sending messages to loved ones, having exactly the dinner they want to have, talking about themselves to anyone who will listen in an effort to be remembered by _someone_. Last rites performed by soldiers who know they may not live to see the morrow. Shepard has seen this behavior before, but never has she had something she has wanted to do, as well. It doesn’t surprise her, then, when she walks into her quarters to find Kaidan already there. Without a word, she crosses over to him, wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him. He kisses her back, desperation fierce on his lips, and she knows he is here for the same reason. If this is to be their last night, they want to spend it together.  
  
**2183**. It’s done. Saren is defeated, the threat is held at bay. Shepard looks around her crew, locking eyes with each one in turn to give them a small nod of acknowledgment. They’ve made her proud. They did what they had set out to do. Finally, her eyes fall on Kaidan. He gives her the smallest of smiles and inclines his head in the direction of her quarters. The nod she gives him is different from the others - and his smile widens. Later that night, he calls her _Morgan_ \- because that’s who she now is to him, and only him.  
  
**2183**. Unlike her birth, Morgan’s death is not a small affair. Memorial services and moments of silence are held across the galaxy. Plazas are named for her. Flags are flown at half-mast. From one planet to another, from one space station to the next, from ship to ship, Morgan is remembered a hero. For one person, however, her death is different. He hasn’t lost an intergalactic hero - he has lost the love of his life.  
  
**2185**. Morgan feels the same as she did before. She looks almost the same as she did before. Only the slightest of scarring marks what could so easily have been the end of her life. How can it have been two years? How can she have been _dead_ ? The moment she had heard how long she had been gone, a single question had fallen from her lips: “where is Kaidan Alenko?”  
  
**2185**. She hears his voice before she sees him, but she immediately knows that it’s him. She would recognize that voice anywhere. His name falls off her lips and she runs to him, wraps her arms around him and hugs him close. It’s only then that she realizes something is wrong - though he hugs her back, it isn’t the same. His body is rigid against hers, his hold on her perfunctory. She takes a step back and looks into his eyes, and sees none of the warmth there that she used to. He opens his mouth to speak, and her world falls apart.  
  
**2185**. He doesn’t believe in her. After all this time, after everything they’ve been through, he doesn’t believe in her. The person who always had her back, the person who was her partner in every conceivable way, is no longer there for her. She asked him to trust her, and he said no. For the first time in over ten years, she cannot hold back her tears.  
  
**2185**. Garrus tries to tell her that he will come around, but she doesn’t believe him. He wasn’t there. He didn’t see the look in Kaidan’s eyes - the look in _Alenko’s_ eyes. For the next few weeks, Shepard feels useless. She goes through the motions of command, trying to keep her mind on the mission, but fails miserably. She makes a few bad calls. She gets someone killed. _This_ is what her father always talked about. _This_ is why Shepards don’t get attached. Emotions get in the way of duty.  
  
**2185**. The next time someone refers to her as a machine, she nods and takes it as the compliment it is. Her father was right. For a Shepard, duty must come first - and now, thanks to Alenko, she will never forget that again.

**Author's Note:**

> 31/03/18:  
> Now with a companion piece, a collaboration between myself and the ineffable [@vjatoch](https://vjatoch.tumblr.com) (incredible artist, wonderful friend, A+ ~~human~~ god  <3). Art by vjatoch, graphical design and text by yours truly. Thank you so much for doing this with me, darling - I'm not gonna lie to you, I still kind of stare at it every few hours for a good few minutes just because I think we did _so well_. 


End file.
